


drink up the sunrise

by beecalm



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Post-Timeskip, bike rides and stargazing, brief mentions of alcohol, unhealthy amounts of space imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23628196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beecalm/pseuds/beecalm
Summary: Hoshiumi stands upon the court and hits spikes that could make any blocker weep, while Hinata’s presence fades to little more than a line on Kageyama’s biography page.Ask anyone, and they will say Hoshiumi has won fair and square.(It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Hoshiumi Kourai
Comments: 44
Kudos: 282





	drink up the sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> fellas is it gay to shout across the court at your opponent who you’ve known for like 3 days that you’re gonna keep waiting for him

One more year, Hoshiumi thinks, as his team dozes around him on the bus ride back to Nagano. One more year is no time at all. 

Sure, he’s impatient by nature- always the first to wake up, the first changed after practice, the first to slam the ball down onto the other side of the court. If someone was to tell him to slow down, he would likely laugh. Life is too short, he’s told his teammates more than once. There’s no time to sit around and wait for things to come to you. The earth spins at a thousand miles an hour; if you want to win, you’ve got no choice but to move with it. 

“You’ll regret that when you run out of energy before practice ends.” Hirugami always responds, and Hoshiumi loathes to admit that he’s always right.

But even for Hoshiumi, eyes tracing the flight path of a seagull that cruises alongside the bus window, one year is barely any time at all. 

Next year, he will play a full game against Hinata Shouyou- three whole sets of breathless energy and an upwards trajectory towards the skyline, as they show the world how they have learned to fly. Next year, there will be no fevers, there will be no falls, there will be no flight path angled dangerously towards the sun, soot-black wings burned clean of feathers. And Hoshiumi will win, because he’s not called the Little Giant for nothing, and he will be the first of them to touch the sky. 

_Till next year,_ He tells Hinata Shouyou, across the mountains and all the way back to Miyagi, as the seagull pulls away from the window and soars up and up and up. _I’ll be waiting._

But there is no next year. 

It’s Date Tech, not Karasuno, who stands opposite Kamomedai on the blue court. It’s not Kageyama’s genius sets, Nishinoya’s blink-and-you’d-miss-it receives, Hinata’s fingertips reaching high over the net. It’s not what Hoshiumi has been waiting for. Date Tech is formidable- an iron wall not just by name. But there isn’t a single blocker in the Tokyo Gymnasium that can hold Hoshiumi Kourai, a boy who has learned how to kick his feet against the ground and fly. 

The cheers are loud as ever- louder, even- the taller the opponent, the bigger the reaction- that’s the rules of the game. 

Hoshiumi drinks in the praise like he hasn’t tasted water in days- but it’s still not what he’s been waiting for.

And the year after- there is no year after. 

Hoshiumi graduates with prospects lined up before him in tenfold, accolades and awards pinned to his name like medals, and he takes no role in the Kamomedai team which plays and loses to Karasuno in the quarter finals. 

“If I’d have been there, you wouldn’t have even struggled.” He tells his former team later, as they pile off the bus in one long, weary line. His attempts to force down the bitterness behind his words are nothing short of a failure, because this team before him, which he no longer has a part in, was able to see Hinata fly. 

Perhaps then, in the volleyball leagues, he wonders. Because Hinata plays volleyball like it is the breath in his lungs and the lifeline which grounds him, and if a person like him cannot make it in the professional scene, then there is no hope for anyone. To see him do anything else- it would almost feel like a crime. A bull with a day job in a china shop, smashing the ceramics to pieces. 

Three years, He tells himself, as he hits serve after serve and sends the crowds _wild._ Three years is not too bad.

He hears it first from Atsumu, who heard it from Bokuto, who heard it from Kageyama. The news comes hand in hand with a feeling that errs a little too close to _defeated_.

Seagulls do not exclusively live by the beach. Owls can rotate their heads 270 degrees. Crows are not migratory birds.

Still, Hinata packs up his bags and flies south for the winter.

-

As Hoshiumi begins his career in the professional volleyball scene- Hinata ends his before it has even begun. It’s common news that he has jetted off halfway around the world, because crows are omnivorous beings and Hinata will sink his teeth into any opportunity presented to him.

Hoshiumi stands upon the court and hits spikes that could make any blocker weep, while Hinata’s presence fades to little more than a line on Kageyama’s biography page.

Ask anyone, and they will say Hoshiumi has won fair and square. 

(It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.)

-

He almost wishes Hinata had struggled those three long years ago, back when a net formed a flimsy divide between them, ready for them to reach up and soar beyond. Perhaps if he hadn’t handed over the title so easily, perhaps if he had clung to it with stubborn fingertips in the same way he had clung to the shouts for _one more point_ , then perhaps they would have fought to the very end. 

But there are two irrevocable facts;

\- Hoshiumi Kourai is the Little Giant

\- Hinata Shouyou is not

No amount of struggling, no hot-blooded, shaking-limbed fight against gravity could make it any different. Hoshiumi is the Little Giant by name and by nature, as sure as birds shall fly and the sea will retreat towards the horizon every morning. 

Yet, as reporters call him as such- a little giant, a huge presence in such a tiny body- he could almost tell them to shut up. (Almost, because ‘ _think of your image’_ is a phrase he hears all too often. _if you’re going to pick a fight, make it with someone who isn’t holding a microphone_. To hell with his image, he would rebuke if he didn’t need the sponsorship money- because Hoshiumi Kourai is nobody if he is not able to speak his mind.)

Wash your hands before meals, eat a protein bar after practice, be nice to reporters. Hoshiumi smiles, and tells them he will continue to work hard.

The title of Little Giant- as much as it belongs to him as though it was his own first name- it is still not fully his. It’s just on loan from a boy who is now halfway across the world, twelve hours ahead. A tiny piece of no-man's-land, which Hoshiumi will gladly wage an entire war to grasp hold of. 

But until he can win it back in its entirety- Hoshiumi is fine with waiting.

-

“He’s making quite the name for himself in the beach volleyball scene over in Rio.” Hirugami tacks onto the end of their conversation, voice a little muffled as he sandwiches his phone between his shoulder and ear and scribbles down notes on canine dental anatomy. Hoshiumi could almost swear he feels himself mellowing out, because he no longer feels the urge to complain about only having Hirugami’s divided attention.

Hoshiumi asks who- not that he needs to, not that there’s anyone else who would be so reckless. (Not even Hoshiumi himself, and that feels like a defeat in itself.)

“Karasuno’s number 10.” He only wore the number upon his jersey for one short year, but it’s how he will always be remembered- the tiny number 10 who jumps like he takes to the court in Hermes’s winged sandals, and then crashes like icarus upon the sweat-smeared ground. 

“Hah!” Hoshiumi scoffs, like it’s the funniest joke he’s heard in a long while. “Why should I care?” 

“Because you don’t like to wait,” Hirugami states. “But here you are anyway.”

“Be glad you’re on the other side of the damn country.” Hoshiumi responds.

-

Sometimes he wonders if they are fated to never meet. Binary stars in constant orbit of one another, held apart by a force of their own creation. A well-versed system where Hoshiumi takes one step forward, and Hinata takes another two back. A system where, should they meet, neither shall escape the resulting supernova unscathed.

Then he reminds himself that there’s no such thing as fate, and that Hoshiumi Kourai has never been faced with an opportunity that he did not create for himself. 

“Hinata’s been in Brazil a whole year now.” Kageyama states as the Schweiden Adlers volleyball team cools down after a day of practice. 

_Five years you’ve been waiting,_ some unhelpful voice that sounds a little too much like Hinata speaks back.

-

He reads his horoscope in the local newspaper the next morning, despite the fact that he’s never once believed in the credibility of such things. _Remember to look up_ , it discloses, and Hoshiumi scoffs as he throws on a jacket for his morning run.

Later that morning he is nailed in the face by a volleyball, and he begins to believe in fate just a little.

-

Opposites attract- and those that are similar will always repel. it’s basic science, really. Like magnets and all that, Hoshiumi thinks to himself, as he scrolls through TV programmes he has no intention of watching. Just two positive forces which can never meet. 

_You’re too similar to me_ , he tells nobody in particular, and swears the words do not sound bitter.

There’s a documentary on binary stars that sticks upon the screen, and Hoshiumi sits and watches them spin.

-

_Remember to look up_ , read his horoscope in the newspaper once. It feels almost ridiculous that he remembers it from all those months ago. If it were some profound, life-changing piece of advice, he could perhaps understand the way it lodges in his memory, like a splinter trapped under his skin. But he’s a volleyball player- looking up is his _job_. He’d get nowhere if he was to spend his life staring at the blue linoleum below his trainers. Still, he remembers. Still, he makes a conscious effort to watch the clouds above as he walks to the local gym- much closer to his apartment than the Schweiden Adlers’ own stomping ground.

He steps into the gym while it’s still early, while the streetlamps still cut shadows out of the pavement and the sun’s light is as dilute as it comes, like it still hasn’t woken up along with the rest of the world. _Remember to look up_ , reads his horoscope. 

Hoshiumi only believes in fate a little bit, but he knows it must be on his side when Hinata Shouyou leaps beyond the flimsy battleline of the gym’s worn-down net and _flies_.

His feet lift off from the hardwood court, and it’s been six years since that quarter finals match, where Hinata shone so brightly and burned out like Icarus upon the blue linoleum floor. Hoshiumi can’t help but feel that it is all too anticlimactic. 

Because here is six years of waiting, brought to a close on the other side of a community gym net. There’s no fanfare, no grand battleground, no white-hot lights or adrenaline like a forest fire beneath his skin. Just Hinata, wings formed anew, and Hoshiumi, forever looking up.

He’s different now- a little taller, a little stronger, like all of his soft edges have been snip-snip-snipped clean away. The last time Hoshiumi saw Hinata in person, he was Icarus- he who jumped too high and felt the pain of his wings being burned to the bone. 

But the years have been kind- and now Hinata plays the role of the sun itself.

Hoshiumi would consider leaving before he can be spotted- but that would just feel like losing.

Hinata hits the ball, the swing of his palm echoing from wall to wall as if seeking an escape route. Hoshiumi is a creature of instinct- made up entirely of determination and cheesy sayings about having volleyball in his veins- and so he dives to receive it. The ball sails in a neat parabola back over the net, landing only a metre away from Hinata’s feet. For the first time, Hoshiumi sees him look downwards.

“Hoshiumi-san! Never thought I’d run into you here,” Hinata greets him with a smile that’s a little bit warm and a whole lot competitive. It’s one of the only parts of him that has barely changed, like a relic of the fifteen year old boy who stood on the other side of a Tokyo Gymnasium net and declared himself a giant. “Long time no see!”

_Six years_ , Hoshiumi doesn’t say. _Haven’t you been counting?_

“What’s your height now?” He replies in its place. He smiles like it’s a challenge, because things between them have never been anything but. A binary system could not exist if one half stopped pulling, and Hoshiumi cannot stand opposite Hinata if he is the first to back down.

“172.2cm, and yours?” There's a brief moment where he scans Hoshiumi up and down as if trying to gauge the difference between them, that confident, bright grin never quite fading. 

“Aha!” Hoshiumi shouts, all too delighted. “173.1cm!” 

And although he has only faced off against him once, although he hasn’t seen him in person for almost seven years, the way Hinata shouts and buries his hands despairingly in his hair is almost shockingly familiar. 

-

_Remember to look up_ , a fate which Hoshiumi did not craft for himself once said, and was never once incorrect. Hoshiumi stares at the pavement the whole way home, and tries to convince his shoelaces that he’s not petty at all.

-

It’s predicted to be one of the biggest matches of the season- the reigning champions Schweiden Adlers versus the rising stars MSBY Black Jackals. A battle between two former teammates, the demon duo of Karasuno highschool now facing each other on opposite sides of the net.

Anyone who kept up with the high school volleyball scene would know that this is not just the Adlers versus the Jackals. This is a clash between Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shouyou too, and that makes it all the more exciting. 

There’s not a word about how Hoshiumi has waited six years for a rematch he had begun to believe would never happen. He’s the only one who has been counting, and he almost wants to stand upon the court and shout into the ceiling lights that _I am here too. I have been waiting just as long._

Six years is a long time to wait, especially for someone like Hoshiumi, who takes life a minute at a time and works as fast as his limbs can keep up. Binary stars can orbit at 310 miles per second, and Hoshiumi is not about to slow down for anyone to catch up. 

Six years is a long time to wait, and as Hinata shakes his hand across the net that becomes their battleline, the grin upon his face tells Hoshiumi that he has been counting too. 

-

But it’s not Hoshiumi who wins. 

In that final set, pushing head-to-head with white-hot adrenaline coursing through his veins, Hinata flies higher, further, faster; fingertips breaching Hoshiumi’s tallest reach for just less than a heartbeat. Binary stars orbit at 310 miles per second, and Hinata does more than just keep up, as he taps the ball over Hoshiumi’s outstretched palms and onto the court below. 

He dives for it- the game is not over until the ball hits the ground, all is not lost until the whistle blows and the flag carves out an arc into the static-filled air. But there’s not enough time, and the ball hits the court with a resounding _thud_ that echoes from wall to wall like a gunshot, before being drowned out by cheers from all four sides. 

Hoshiumi curses from his spot on the ground, as Hinata’s feet touch down from flight, turning the court into his very own airstrip. And though Hoshiumi only believes in fate a little bit, Hinata’s smile as he is smothered by his teammates tells him with no doubt that karma has already picked a favourite. 

There’s no bitterness though, because as much as he would have liked to win, as much as he drinks up the cheers of his name in the haze of victory as if they were a life-source, to play a full match, start to finish, against Hinata Shouyou was all he wanted. 

It hasn’t changed a single thing- Hoshiumi Kourai is still the Little Giant and Hinata Shouyou is still the greatest decoy; no number of wins or losses could change that. All that matters to Hoshiumi, as he picks himself up from the sweat-streaked court and smiles up to the ceiling, is that now, _next time_ is something tangible. Hinata is still changing, still evolving, and Hoshiumi has no intention of being left behind. As long as they can keep playing, as long as they can continue to turn the court into their battleground, as long as they are pulled into one another’s orbit- Hoshiumi can’t possibly consider it a loss.

“You look pretty cheerful for someone who just lost,” Hinata must have lost his filter somewhere halfway around the world- or perhaps he never had one to begin with, and Hoshiumi just never got the chance to notice. He’s still wearing his uniform- still in black just like Hoshiumi still wears white, like a relic from those highschool days where graduation felt like the endpoint and not just a springboard to the next step, to _this._ Hinata rolls his shoulder, like he’s easing out some lingering stiffness, and Hoshiumi’s eyes instinctively follow the movement with vicious intent. “You almost had us in that last set though. Those serves of yours are nothing to laugh at.”

“You’re not the only one whose been improving.” Hoshiumi thinks he likes the spark of competitiveness the words light in Hinata’s eyes more than any cheer from the courtside. 

“What _have_ you been doing these past few years?” Hinata asks, settling himself against the doorframe. “Kageyama never mentioned you ‘cause he doesn’t know how to text more than single-word answers.”

“I’ve been waiting.” Hoshiumi answers truthfully, because there’s something about Hinata that seems like he could predict all of his secrets if he so wanted.

“What for?” Hinata must know the answer, yet he still has the courtesy to ask.

“To win against the greatest decoy” he speaks it into the slow-moving, post-battle air of the gym like a challenge.

Hinata grasps it with both hands, holds it as if he were about to hit a serve to the other side of the court, and grins. “You’ll just have to wait a little longer then.”

And that’s just fine, Hoshiumi thinks. Because Hinata is bad at giving up, and Hoshiumi has learned to be good at waiting. 

  
  


-

There’s a party later that night- a reunion of the monster generation who took to the Tokyo Gymnasium like a storm in their highschool years, all piling into the back room of a buffet restaurant. Even some of the coaches have shown up- Hoshiumi recognises Karasuno’s coach and advisor chatting away to the tall middle blocker with glasses, who Hoshiumi remembers causing a hell of a lot of problems in Komamedai’s game against Karasuno all those years ago. Hinata walks up to them with drinks in hand, and Hoshiumi is pulled into a conversation with Atsumu and Bokuto about the game earlier. 

He’s by no means a lightweight, but Hoshiumi feels a pleasant hum below his skin as the meal develops into an arm-wrestling match between Kageyama and Hinata. (Hinata wins, and Hoshiumi does not stare at the strength of his grip under the warm lights of the restaurant.) Then there’s singing, and more drinks, because although most of them are athletes, they’re permitted to enjoy themselves every once in a while. The laughter in the air is nearly tangible as Ushijima says something that Hoshiumi doesn’t quite catch, and Hinata sits down heavily alongside him, placing an empty glass down on the table. 

The sensation of lightheadedness feels a little more dangerous, as Hinata relaxes into him and sighs loudly. 

“Brazil was nice,” He speaks, and Hoshiumi’s eyes latch onto the way his mouth moves around the words. It was never like this before, when Hoshiumi was seventeen and didn’t know a single thing outside of volleyball. Now, Hinata is stronger, broader, with tanned skin and a habit of rolling his sleeves up past his elbows- and Hoshiumi is nothing if not impatient and predictable. “It was _really_ nice,” He reiterates, and Hoshiumi watches. “But I missed this too much to stay there.” 

He gestures around the room, to where Bokuto has dozed off upon the tabletop, to where some of Hinata’s old teammates sing off-key in the corner, to where his arm presses white-hot into Hoshiumi’s side. 

“You’d better be glad you didn’t stay there,” Hoshiumi blames fate, blames his horoscope, blames binary star systems, as he jabs a finger into Hinata’s shoulder. “Waiting six years for you to catch up was long enough.”

“Six years is a long time to wait, Hoshiumi-san.” Hinata speaks, suddenly sounding far too sober. 

_And I’d wait longer if I had to_ , he could respond. Hoshiumi is glad that he’s still aware enough to hold his own tongue.

-

The places Hinata touched still burn long after he has left- like the sting of his hand after a good serve, or the friction burn on his knees after one too many receives. It hurts, and it’s satisfying, and Hoshiumi finds despairingly that he only wants more. 

_Six years is a long time to wait._ It’s his voice that burns too, even more so than the places where his arm burned into Hoshiumi’s side. It repeats in his head like a fixation, a broken record, a pair of constantly orbiting stars. _A long, long time to wait, Hoshiumi-san._

“Were you not waiting too?” He tells the empty ceiling above his head; always looking up, always waiting. (After all- he can’t win a competition where he is the only one taking part.)

-

Hinata wants to visit home, and Hoshiumi wants to try the pork buns from a shop in Miyagi that Kageyama has raved about more than once. It’s a matter of convenience, he tells himself, when he hops on the Shinkansen alongside Hinata, bags packed for two days.

Really, it’s not too dissimilar to when Kageyama spends hours upon hours pouring over videos of their opponents, embedding every pixel of their technique into his mind. He’s just scouting out an opponent, he reasons, as the city fades into trees and fields outside the window and Hinata fidgets in his seat like an excited kid.

The first part of the journey is a little too boring for Hoshiumi’s liking, but as they pass through Sendai, Hinata begins pointing out landmarks that whirl past the window, little pieces of home that kick up some sort of firelight behind his eyes as he tries to explain them before the next one comes past.

Hoshiumi is not sure how he’s supposed to feel.

They’ve met at the community gym that lies near both of their apartments often enough to be considered friends, and Hoshiumi is sociable by nature, always glad of one more person to talk to and impress. Hinata just makes him feel a little more out of his depth than he’s used to. (He can feel a height joke lying somewhere in that statement, but decides not to dwell on it.) 

He sighs, watching out of the window at the trees which fly past, and tries to pretend that he can’t feel Hinata staring after him. There’s nothing about Hinata which isn’t intense, one hundred percent effort at all times, and his gaze is no different.

“What?” He snaps, but finds his words faltering uselessly at the smile which Hinata sends his way.

“I just like looking at you, Hoshiumi-san.” Hinata responds, and Hoshiumi feels the words ring through his head like a chime.

-

After alighting at the train station, there’s a bus ride followed by a long walk, one which takes them past the doors of Karasuno high school as the sun sinks lower in the sky. Hinata peers in through the gates, locked for the evening but doing little to deter him from sticking his arm through the gaps and pointing out the gym, the window of his third year homeroom class, the door to the volleyball club room. 

“This feels like being back in highschool again,” Hinata grins as they pick up snacks from a convenience store near the gates. “All that’s missing is Kageyama challenging me to a race and calling me dumb.” 

Hoshiumi pauses, snatches his sports drink out of the bag in Hinata’s arms, and tears off down the road. “Why didn’t you ask!” He calls over his shoulder, as Hinata overcomes his short-lived surprise and chases hot on his heels. 

The road slopes up into an incline and his bag does nothing aside from weigh him down, but Hoshiumi can’t stop his laughter as Hinata’s footfalls land heavily behind him “You’re going the wrong way!” He shouts around his own laughter, breath catching in his lungs, and Hoshiumi is glad he’s focused on the road ahead so he doesn’t have to turn and look. “Your hotel is back that way!” 

He pays no notice, and skids to a halt over the crest of the hill, out of breath as he straightens out his spine and stares out across the landscape below, from Karasuno’s playing fields to the convenience store they stopped at. Hinata skids to a halt next to him only seconds later, yet it’s a few seconds which fill him with a giddy sense of childish joy. 

“I won!” He singsongs, then doubles over to catch his breath. “Wow, these hills are _awful.”_

“I used to cycle this way to school every morning,” Hinata traces a line down the road, all the way to the gates of his old school, like he’s mapping out a pathway that has been thoroughly ingrained into his mind. “They’re pretty nasty on foot though.”

“Oh, so that’s where you got your disgusting amount of stamina from,” Hoshiumi loathes to admit that he’s impressed. “I think I’d be able to play two five-set matches in a day if I was used to this.” ( _See,_ he reasons to himself, _I’m scouting information about my opponent.)_

“Do you know how to ride a bike? It always surprises me how many people don’t.” Hinata asks, turning his attention from the hilltops and looking towards Hoshiumi instead. ( _I like looking at you, Hoshiumi-san. I like looking.)_

“‘Course I do.” Hoshiumi leaves out the part about how he hasn’t ridden a bike in years. It’s a skill you never lose after all, so surely it is still built into his muscle memory, somewhere alongside his spikes and his serves.

“Well, we’ve got a while before the sun sets completely and I want to show you around, so how ‘bout we go back to my place and pick up some bikes? It’ll be much faster than on foot!” Hinata proposes, and Hoshiumi stares.

This is far beyond what Hoshiumi had planned, a little too far past the point of _rivals_ , straying right into some dangerous territory he wasn’t even aware of before now. But Hinata looks delighted by the prospect, his smile almost making up for the dim sunlight that sinks below the skyline, and so Hoshiumi can’t do anything but agree. 

Besides- he’s damn right about those hills being awful on the knees. 

-

Hinata’s house is remote and traditional, with screen doors that Hinata throws open as he announces his presence, met by an even louder response from a voice that sounds too young to be his mother. (A sister, he had mentioned once as they cooled down in the local gym.)

“I think my dad’s old bike is knocking around somewhere,” Hinata muses to himself, as he kicks off his shoes and disappears into one of the side rooms. “Wait here for a bit.”

And so Hoshiumi finds himself left at the kitchen table, right opposite where Hinata’s sister works through a sheet of maths problems and tosses orange slices into her mouth. He considers belatedly that this may be a little over the line of what is considered ‘scouting out an opponent’. (He doubts Kageyama has been abandoned in the kitchen of an opposing spiker or setter’s house before.)

“He used to use videos of your games to practice his jumps.” Hinata’s sister breaks the silence without looking up from her homework, and slides him an orange segment across the tabletop.

_Hey, I like looking at you,_ singsongs an imaginary Hinata somewhere in the back of Hoshiumi’s mind, as he pops the orange slice in his mouth and tries not to look so starstruck. 

There’s a crash from one of the side rooms, and Hinata emerges with a battered old bike in his hands, wheeling it into the middle of the kitchen. “Found it! I think one of the gears doesn’t work, and there’s a bit of a problem with one of the inner tubes, but it should do for now.” Hoshiumi doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t have a clue what Hinata is talking about, wishing to spare at least a shred of his dignity, and just nods in response. 

They cycle out across the mountainside pathways, down towards the centre of town, as Hoshiumi grapples with the handlebars and tries to remember how to change his gears, pedaling as fast as he can to keep up with Hinata. He’s not about to lose now, not even when the sun sinks lower and scatters golden shards that land in Hinata’s hair, and Hoshiumi feels like he’s taken a serve to the chest as Hinata turns to laugh at his embarrassing attempts at steering. 

By the time they turn back towards the town centre, Hoshiumi has just about learned to stay on the correct side of the road, enough for Hinata to steer them down streets and point out shops he likes, restaurants he used to visit, the shrine he used to wish for good fortune within. He motions towards the shop which Kageyama had recommended, the hotel Hoshiumi booked a room in, the bus stop so he can make it back to the train station the following evening. And then he directs them away from the town, back up the mountain roads as the sun sinks fully out of sight and the sky becomes star scattered and bright with moonlight. 

Hoshiumi looks up- because he’s _always_ looking up- and realises just how much he’d missed the stars. Tokyo is busy and bright, filled with neon signs and skyscraper windows in place of starlight- and it is nothing compared to this.

“They’re just not the same in the city, are they?” It’s like Hinata can read his mind, as he tilts his chin up towards the stars. Hoshiumi settles for pedaling a little harder and pulling into the lead. 

He falls behind again as they turn off the road, down a dark, uneven path which leaves him no choice but to follow Hinata closely, the wheels of his bike catching on roots cracking through the pavement and twigs scattered across the path.

“Race you for this last bit.” Hinata calls, and then speeds off. He skips over the path as if he were flying, because his wings are not just reserved for official games, and Hoshiumi will be damned if he lets himself fall behind. An indignant statement about how it’s _not fair_ dies in his throat- because where would Hoshiumi be if he was the sort to back down in the face of a disadvantage- and he grits his teeth and pedals after him.

He’s only a few seconds behind when the trees thin out and Hinata dismounts from his bike, beckoning Hoshiumi to follow with an eager smile. “I won that one,” he whispers like it’s a secret, grinning all the way. “You owe me a pork bun tomorrow.”

Hoshiumi goes to rebuke that he never agreed to such terms- but as he looks up, the words are knocked clean from his chest.

They’re stood upon an outcrop, framed by trees and looking out over the town, with its blinking lights and winding roads, criss-crossed by telephone cables and car headlights which snake down the streets. And above it, the clouds yawn open to reveal the stars, the arc of the milky way and the flash of an aeroplane which traces its way between them. 

“I was hoping this would still be here,” Hinata states, sitting down upon the rocky ground. “I camped out here once with the other first years, right before we graduated. It rained and Kageyama got lost and we ran out of snacks, but the view was worth it.” He reminisces, staring not at the stars, but right at Hoshiumi instead.

( _And why take me here?_ He wants to ask, but for once in his life he cannot find the words. _Why show your opponent so many pieces of yourself?)_

Somewhere in the limitless expanse of the universe above each of their heads, a binary star system collides- twin giants spitting burning hydrogen into the cosmos until they have eaten one another whole. an Ouroboros tucked amongst the space dust, whose dying throes cast a light so beautiful that they will almost regret not colliding, burning, tearing one another apart sooner. 

Feet planted firmly upon the lonely Miyagi hilltop, Hinata and Hoshiumi don’t see a single piece of it. They are small and they are insignificant, barely a speck upon the face of the universe. But as Hinata’s breath clouds around his face, as his hair is burned silver in the dying starlight, as he turns to stare across the hundreds of thousands of atoms between them ( _I like looking at you, Hoshiumi-san. I like looking looking looking._ ), Hoshiumi feels a supernova of his own shatter through the bones of his ribcage.

The universe is so large, and they are both so small in comparison- but up upon that hillside, Hoshiumi learns what it means to be a giant.

“Meet me up here tomorrow morning,” Hinata breaks the overwhelming stillness that settles between them, shaking Hoshiumi from where he is so helplessly caught in orbit. “I want to show you what the sunrise is like.”

“You think I’m gonna remember the route up here?” Hoshiumi struggles to remember it even now, his mind lost somewhere in the cosmos, so unlike himself that it’s almost terrifying. 

“I don’t know- will you?” Hinata grins, wicked under the moonlight, and it’s an expression which Hoshiumi is all too familiar with. 

It’s another challenge, because that is what they live by. Like a fish must keep moving to stay alive, Hoshiumi and Hinata must compete against each other over and over. Living on the blue court- in a world where they must prove themselves twice as hard and smash through twice as many expectations with each spike, jump and block- competition is as essential to them as breathing.

Crows and gulls are both omnivorous creatures after all- and Hoshiumi is nothing if not opportunistic.

“You bet.” He seizes the challenge with both hands, because this is what he is good at. 

-

He sleeps early, setting an alarm for just shy of 4AM. He’s glad that he’s no stranger to early mornings, and that a quick shower and a coffee is more than enough to revive him. It’s still dark when he steps outside, one of the streetlamps flickering with a low hum as Hoshiumi struggles with the bike lock Hinata had lent him, cold fingers fumbling over the numbers as he attempts to key in the right combination. 

The first part of the ride is easy- he remembers the way to the hillside path with no issues, guiding himself by the shops and landmarks Hinata had pointed out the day before. But the memory of the upwards slope is far more hazy, and he almost steers himself into open fields more times than he would ever admit to Hinata in his attempts to find the right turnoff. 

It’s Hinata’s shock of orange hair which saves him, visible against the treeline in the weak morning light. The off-road path is much easier when Hoshiumi can see the ground below his wheels as he skims past the trees and looks towards the place where he knows the sky will open up before him. 

“You owe me two pork buns now,” Hinata greets him, as Hoshiumi hops off his bike and lays it to rest against a tree alongside Hinata’s. “That’s twice you’ve been slower than me.”

“Well, I beat you at running up the hill yesterday, so you owe me one too,” Hoshiumi rebukes, shoving his hands in his pockets and looks out over the skyline. “Aren’t you here far too early? I don’t see that sunrise you promised.”

“You’ve gotta be patient. And I came out here early to meditate. Why don’t you give it a try while you’re waiting?” Hoshiumi blinks at Hinata’s response, because he never really jotted him down as the type for meditation and mindfulness, used to seeing him in nothing but full motion. He’s got the sort of energy which overflows and is contagious to everything around him- but Hoshiumi realises just how much there is about Hinata which he still doesn’t know. 

Curious as he is- Hoshiumi is not one for sitting still. “I’ll pass on that one.” instead, he focuses upon the horizon, where the sun is beginning to creep up further into the sky, and he waits.

There’s nothing to say between them, as the sun climbs higher and washes the treetops with pink and gold, slowly painting the sky with morning light. It catches in Hinata’s hair, dances in the creases of his clothes, weaves itself into his eyelashes, and Hoshiumi turns before he can be caught staring. 

Hinata is the first to break the silence. 

“When you said you’d been waiting for six years- what was it exactly that you were waiting for?”

If he had asked Hoshiumi on the eve of that first rematch, he would have answered simply: to win. Because that is all Hoshiumi has ever wanted- to prove his worth, to show that he is the true Little Giant, to finish what he started all those years ago. But even as he lost, even as that final ball skimmed his fingertips and hit the court like a gunshot, he still felt satisfied. 

Because of course, it was never about winning in the first place.

“You,” Is all he replies, because Hinata has a spectacular ability to render him speechless. “I was waiting for you.” 

Though the sun breaches the horizon behind him, though the clouds are stained pink and gold and the world below them rises from its slumber, Hinata ignores every piece of it, and stares directly into Hoshiumi instead. _I like looking at you, Hoshiumi-san_ , he had said then, upon the train with the world flickering past their window.

“I’m glad.” He says now, as the scenery grinds to a shuddering halt, and he kisses Hoshiumi under the rising sun.

Hinata may have started the challenge, but Hoshiumi sure as hell isn’t going to let him finish it, as he tangles his well-worn fingertips into the gold-painted strands of Hinata’s hair, and kisses him back like he’s been waiting for it his whole life.

_And perhaps he has been_ , he thinks, as Hinata’s strong hands press into his arms and he tugs on the hair at the back of Hinata’s neck. 

Because Hoshiumi has waited six years- and if it was for this, he would gladly wait a lifetime more.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments make me cry tears of joy
> 
> twt: bee__calm  
> tumblr: bee-calm


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